A Thin Thread
by KDHeart
Summary: [sequel to Angel on My Shoulder] Stuck in Purgatory after his death, Gabriel discovers he still has a connection to the world of the living - Sam Winchester. After Purgatory, the most boring and unchanging place next to Heaven gets turned on its head by the stunts pulled by Castiel, he decides it's time to get out and he needs Sam's help to do it.
1. Chapter 1

Written for the 2014 Gabriel Big Bang and illustrated by the lovely scherziato and thette. You can find the links in my profile.

Contains spoilers for season 7 and 8, if you count Benny as a spoiler.

A Thin Thread

Chapter 1

The afterlife was boring. He hadn't given much thought to it while he was still alive, but angels don't really have to worry about that – they either exist forever as servants of God or fallen in Hell, or they don't exist at all; full stop, no sequel. The same went for gods to an extent – as long as there's faith, they keep coming back. They're not always the same, but they're not dead, so there's that. When the faith dries up, well… Even gods have to adapt to survive, some more gracefully and successfully than others.

Gabriel had done nothing _but_ adapt for centuries. He was so good at it, he never settled on one thing for long. But he never really let go of the angel part of himself and he never felt the need to find alternate sources of power – he never had to stoop as low as some of the gods he'd met the past hundred or so years, no better than vampires, or shifters, or any number of monsters the human hunters felt entitled to kill. By the time gods died, there was little left of them to linger.

Imagine Gabriel's surprise when he woke up in Purgatory after his brother stabbed him. Purgatory was dull. The souls of petty monsters squabbled for supremacy in a land that offered no reward. Anything more imposing tended to be there on a temporal basis and they stayed out of any conflicts; Gabriel, though not very optimistic about his chances of getting out of there, tried to follow their example. There was the occasional vampire, or werewolf who took his passivity for weakness, but they soon learned their lesson. (When it came to some particularly single-minded monsters, Gabriel wished there were something more permanent he could do to them – they just sprung up in some other part of Purgatory. It was frustrating.)

So far in his stay here, there had been two points when things got interesting: the first he couldn't appreciate until it was over, the second was too brief to figure out. And then he woke up one morning to the third and this time he was going to hold on to it.

On morning, Gabriel discovered he was no longer the only angel in Purgatory. One of his brothers had done something stupid enough to land himself there and he was going to find him and poke fun for it until he got it out of his system and then, maybe, work out a way to get out of there.

The brother turned out to be Castiel, of all angels! Though it probably made more sense than anyone else.

Alas, he hadn't done anything as banal as go pagan. Nope. The little featherbrain had been responsible for the previous time things got interesting there – the brief exodus of souls, accompanied by the awakening and escape of the Leviathans and followed by the longest period of time Gabriel had tried and actually managed to stay out of everyone's way (being crammed into his little bro did not make the souls of Purgatory feel any better about the vastness of space they had to share and had sent a few particularly thick-headed ex-undead into a frenzy for conquest).

Castiel was a mess. He was also a target. Also, the Leviathans were back. Way to make things interesting!

* * *

Gabriel probably owed Kali flowers… and chocolates… and whatever complex and interesting sexual favors one can perform for a goddess who had the foresight to save his ass from non-existence. She was a goddess among goddesses and, if and when he managed to crawl his way back onto the mortal plane, she was going to make him pay through his nose – and he'd probably do it, although he much preferred it if she asked for another body part.

But it sure took him a while to figure out what this meant.

He missed it at first, in those long hours he wasted lying there, staring dumbly at the trees looming over him in the dark. Lucifer had stabbed him with his own blade in a tricked out motel in the middle of nowhere. There shouldn't be any trees. There shouldn't be anything. At most, he should have been a twinkle of thought in the mind of some kid dreaming of Ragnarok and listening to Metal (rule of cool was made for Gabriel and he was going to die and be reborn by it).

There were trees, and there was darkness, and there were red eyes in that darkness, and there was a feeling of guilt that made no sense in the context, so he pushed it back. He was supposed to feel stupid, not guilty, thank you.

He spent his first weeks fighting aimlessly and trying to work out the intense swirl of emotions that kept overwhelming him at the most inopportune moments and were most definitely not his. He had no reason to feel guilty, or inadequate, or fiercely protective.

Eventually, he realized two things: there was no use fighting in Purgatory – it was more productive to ignore challenges and focus on trying to learn more about his surroundings, some souls were just lonely and actually willing to talk once they were sure you weren't going to inconvenience them by trying to kill them (fighting was always a valid option when boredom became too much, though); and the second was that the source of his disconcerting feelings was Sam Winchester. The second realization didn't help him much. What was he supposed to do, being bound to a giant moose of a man all the way in another plane of reality?

As Purgatory wore him down, it was nice to feel something other than his own frustration and the fear and despair some of the denizens were positively reeking of. And he had his own happy memories of the kid… Accompanied by plenty of bad ones he'd contributed to himself, but wasn't dragging those out here.

In his moments of quiet, he tried reaching out to Sam, but to no avail – either the kid had become very skilled at shielding his mind, or the bond that Kali had set in place wasn't strong enough.

Gabriel felt when Lucifer had taken over Sam's body. The angelic side of his brother filtered through their link loud and clear, almost painful. He was confident that he could learn to block it, but for some reason, he held on until the moment Sam dove into the Pit. After that, he jumped at any opportunity to fight, hoping to dull the feeling of Sam's torment with physical pain and the rush of the fight. Sometimes it worked.

Sometimes, he found himself being pulled into the Pit with him. If he closed his eyes, he could see it on the insides of his eyelids. His brothers were fighting and using Sam as their battlefield. The other kid, a Winchester the guys upstairs pulled out of their asses at the last minute, was largely ignored – not safe; he needed to be somewhere else for that.

Time in Hell flowed so much faster than anywhere else. It was a neat trick, if you didn't have to live it out. There was nothing Gabriel could do, but watch and even that he couldn't do all the time.

And then, one day, it stopped. There was a rush of confusion and then nothing. Sam wasn't gone – his soul had survived more than a century in the Pit, he wasn't going to just wink out of existence – but he was out of Gabriel's reach.

He kept reaching out, but to no avail. He didn't like the implications. Who the hell pulled Sam out of Hell and why did it take so long, to begin with? These two had a habit of springing back to life before you even had a chance to get used to them being gone. Physically, there shouldn't have been anything left of Sam to bring back. He filled his time for a while planning what he'd do to that idiot brother of Sam's for pulling off something that stupid and desperate. The rest of it was spent dispatching minor annoyances – it was the most fun he could have in there.

When the wall protecting Sam's mind broke, the first thing Gabriel felt was relief followed immediately by the urge to find Cas and kick his feathery little ass for what he was about to do.

He didn't want to think of the time spent crammed with all those souls inside of Castiel. There wasn't enough innuendo in all of creation that could make that experience any bearable.

* * *

"Why did you save me?" Castiel asked, still looking a bit out of it.

Gabriel was holding him up by the lapels of his tattered trench coat, shielding him from sight. Of course, he wasn't talking about the hulking mass of tentacles oozing its way past their precarious hiding place and Gabriel gave a nonchalant shrug in reply.

Castiel wasn't going to leave it. He would ask again and again and Gabriel still wouldn't have a good answer for him, because the obvious one, that he was protecting his brother, was the last thing the kid would ever believe. Probably.

Gabriel was being studied with careful consideration and he definitely didn't like the worried frown with which Castiel was delivering this scrutiny.

"You could have left me to fend for myself after you ran into me. It was what I desired – to face the Leviathans on my own, without putting anyone else in danger," he insisted. The same refrain that had been driving Gabriel up the walls for the past few days.

"Look, not trying to belittle your martyrdom – I'm sure you went out in a wonderful stupidly heroic fashion and all, but there isn't anywhere else to go if you die here. You'll just reappear somewhere else and go through the motions again, and again, and again until you'll wish for the torments of Hell for a bit of variety. Stop trying to get yourself killed!" Gabriel explained, knowing it would get ignored again.

He didn't ask about Dean. He knew the hunter was in Purgatory with them - he got as much out of Castiel, but why and how were still things he needed to figure out.

"My presence was putting him in danger," was as the only explanation Castiel kept giving him

* * *

They were lying on top of a cliff, watching the grey sky swirl – it did that, when there were no clouds, since there was nothing dictating that it shouldn't. Gabriel was engaged in a stealthy 'find Dean and save his ass' mission which depended entirely on Castiel's help, but for the most part, he was back to being bored in the afterlife. He didn't mind keeping a low profile, but now he had to keep Castiel out of trouble.

"Did the ritual to get Dick involve any sort of transformation?" he pried.

"Not that I know of."

"Did Dean get bit by anything during that final showdown?" Gabriel insisted.

Castiel turned his head to better glower at his brother. "No."

"So… he's still human…And he didn't die, as far as you know."

"Your point?"

"A non-dead mortal in Purgatory."

Castiel's jaw clenched, but he didn't say anything.

"A live hunter in a place full of dead monsters who can't be killed any more than they've already been killed," Gabriel spelled it out for him.

Castiel sighed. "I did not leave him without protection."

"How long do you think that will last?" Gabriel snapped, sitting up. "He's not one to lie low and stay out of the way."

Castiel followed his example and sat up as well. It was easier to glare that way. "Like we are doing?"

"You're still a danger to yourself, bro," Gabriel told him, a bit too much of his actual worry filtering through. "And he's probably being a danger to _himself_, so you two make an adorably fucked up pair," he added, trying to hide any hint of caring under layers of obnoxiousness.

"Why are you so concerned with his fate?"

"Because he's the only being in all of Purgatory with a chance in hell of getting out of here," he explained. Not like he didn't spend a year teaching one Winchester to live without the other, or built his own reality to try and convince them to play their parts and get things over already, or die helping them stop and Apocalypse before. No, his interest in Dean's fate had to be entirely selfish and pragmatic.

* * *

Sam had been a beacon of pain and confusion in the wake of his wall crumbling. Gabriel had been too busy being yanked out of Purgatory along with all the other souls and trying to stay out of the way of the newly awoken Leviathans, to realize what that meant. Before he could adjust to the new conditions, he was already being thrown back in, but now he knew there was a way out. He was inventive, he was going to find a way – it had happened twice already and he was pretty sure he was cleverer than the Leviathan and that creature Lovecraft had pulled out, he was going to make his own way.

There had to be another way out. There were stories going round among the older monsters – they claimed to have heard them from the denizens, but Gabriel had yet to meet any of the actual locals and treated the idea of anything actually evolving here as a myth – about a gateway designed to push out any human souls. It was little more than a bedtime story, designed to give hope to the hopeless, since there was no way a human soul could get into Purgatory.

Gabriel supposed there had to be other ways to get here than dying. The various realms and dimensions were a bit more interconnected than you were supposed to think. Walking out of Purgatory just like that...

He got distracted from that train of thought by the feeling of Sam doing something stupid and self-destructive. It had been so long since he had felt the stupid human this strongly. He needed a while to work out how to reach him again – there were fewer defenses in place, but a lot more damage he could do by being careless.

He kept watch as Sam was being increasingly destructive to himself – sleepless nights, skipping meals, drinking too much coffee. Not that, from what he could make out, Dean was doing any better. At least the Sam hadn't turned to the bottle, but he was going to last long like that.

Sam had been awake for three days and Gabriel refused to keep track of his caffeine intake anymore when the archangel thought, for a brief second, that Sam had seen him. Sam's eyes had focused on him and there was a brief flash of confusion in his eye and Gabriel had pulled back. He hadn't panicked. That wasn't something he would do if Sam actually could reach back to him. But he had recognized that look. Sam kept looking like that and playing it off as nothing. Gabriel had assumed it was nothing, but now... He wondered what else Sam was seeing and didn't talk about.

He learned over the next few days that Sam was seeing Lucifer. It had gotten to the point where the kid was physically running from the devil in his head and desperate enough to accept help from a drug dealer. If he could hear Gabriel telling him not to do it, it didn't matter – he went ahead with it.

* * *

Sam could hear him. Sam knew he was there. With him. In his head. It didn't matter. Sam's head was a crowded place and Gabriel was competing for his attention with Lucifer and it didn't take long for the devil to catch on as well.

Gabriel wished he could reassure Sam that Lucifer was only a figment of his imagination, but what was he if not the same? What could one figment do when the other even acknowledged their presence? Nothing crushes your sense of self like talking to the echo of an archangel inside the head of a mortal when you're pretty sure you're in the same boat... maybe.

So he tried twisting the situation into something familiar, something all three knew – a prank war in the middle of a ghost hunt. Gabriel found that if he tugged at their connection just so, he could affect Lucifer. The downside was Lucifer could get him back.

Sam didn't acknowledge his presence with more than the occasional tired smile. He occasionally snapped at Lucifer. The ghost nearly got him.

And there were other things he wasn't going to touch for now. He'd done enough damage at the time for Sam to be grateful to be rid of him.

* * *

Finding Dean was a lot harder than Gabriel had anticipated. First of all, Castiel had shielded him. He'd done a very good job of it, too. No wonder Castiel was as week as he was – he had used most of his weakened Grace to shield Dean from any who would search for him through supernatural means. Except that Castiel had done too good a job, and shielded Dean from himself (and Gabriel, too). They had to look for him the old fashioned way, preferably without getting caught in the wrong fight.

Gabriel had decided to test Castiel's protection as soon as he stopped laughing at his brother's dedication to protecting the hunter from everything including himself. It was kind of romantic, in a dark, twisted and obsessive sort of way – which was the old fashioned way, if you asked Gabriel. He'd send out Castiel to look for Dean every few hours, taking advantage of his grace and greater mobility. It turned nothing up.

Mostly, they just kept walking through the forest, hoping to find something. There was a lot of forest.

"Dungeon-forest!" Gabriel blurted at one point and chuckled to himself. He was expecting the usual look of confusion about anything Pop Culture from Castiel, but it earned him a knowing chuckle in return – Cas had gotten a taste for cartoons in the hospital.

He stopped making Castiel go off to find Dean when he realized that even if the shielding didn't actually hide him from Castiel, Castiel was probably not even trying.

So far, they managed to dodge three Leviathan attacks though a combination of Castiel's weakened Grace and Gabriel's sense of self-preservation. Gabriel was usually the first to spot any danger. He'd pull Castiel out of sight with him and then Castiel would fly them a short distance out of the way. The Leviathan were amorphous and disoriented for the most part, but a few had held on to their human form and their ambitions of conquest.

Every time they had to flee, the exertion wore Castiel down and it was bad enough that it showed in the lines around his eyes and in the slump of his shoulders; and Gabriel wished he could fight them and get it over with when they're spotted, or at least provide better cover and not have to run. It meant they needed to camp at the worse moments, for Castiel to recover. It meant Gabriel got to worry – something he has been doing a lot lately.

Gabriel could feel the tension, the constant blame and the ache of loneliness radiating off Castiel through their feeble bond. He wasn't sure his grace was strong enough to attempt anything stronger, but he felt like his brother needed that, needed the reassurance that he wasn't alone on a spiritual level, not just physical. It would help Gabriel catch a glimpse of what was going on inside that incredibly thick head of his, too. Maybe Gabriel needed some reassurance of Castiel's presence on more than a physical level, as well.

Of course, he couldn't tell him that. This was Gabriel, right? He'd already shown more concern for a fellow angel in… weeks? In weeks, than he had in millennia. It was also something very clingy to do and the last thing Gabriel wanted to be was clingy (holding on to the thread connecting him to a certain hunter until the very last possible minute not withstanding). So he framed it as something more self-serving. He wanted to see how much of his angel mojo he could use and he wanted Castiel to be his guinea pig.

Castiel was more likely to help with stuff relating to their survival if Gabriel put the focus on himself. Unfortunately, that wasn't some new development, that was just Castiel's default wiring. It was an angelic thing. Gabriel had always been bad at it.

At first, they only allowed themselves brief brushes of consciousness, only slightly deeper than the surface connection they had maintained since their reunion. It wasn't what either of them needed yet, but they couldn't afford to delve deeper with Leviathans to dodge. Still, there was something in there that was achingly familiar and not in the least angelic.

That night, Gabriel asked him what happened with Sam.

Castiel hadn't told him much about the hospital or what had been going on with Sam before that. He just said that taking down the wall had left him exposed to scars from the Pit. Gabriel knew about the Pit, he didn't need a recap of that.

"He was seeing things that were not there," Castiel began. His brother nodded. Boy, did he know!

"I had been too dead to do anything about it sooner," he explained, "and once I could, there wasn't much for me to do. I took his scars onto myself and healed what I could. There is still much that is not human about Sam, but it should not be a danger to him."

Gabriel was sure at least part of that non-human side of Sam was the thread linking them. The kid had been through so much supernatural shit, he wondered how much of the human was still left – even after being to Hell and back, buried under the surface of his shiny new human frame, Gabriel had felt the hints of things older and more powerful, his little shred of grace nestled among them.

Castiel explained how he dealt with the illusion of Lucifer after that – for it must have been an illusion, because his experience was based on the knowledge Sam had with the Devil, not on the millennia old being that he had known and expected. Put simply, he ignored Lucifer until he faded into the background – his little brother of the infinite patience, ha! "If there were a connection there to begin with," he continued grimly, "all I did was block it. I doubt I could have closed it for good."

This was what Gabriel was looking for. He could feel that the thread was still there, but it was increasingly obvious to him that it now went through Castiel – like a tangled string that had snagged on a branch, but still lead to its source. He could untangle it and maybe follow it out, maybe.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked later, when he was soothing a tense part of Castiel's consciousness. There was a lot of guilt there, but there was nothing he could do about it until they found Dean – most of the things that were eating away at his brother seemed tied to the hunter.

Castiel didn't say anything, but he relaxed his hold on his thoughts a little, to let Gabriel know he was open to listen.

"How much of Sam's soul did you see back in the hospital?" He felt Castiel tense and caught a flash of memory – Sam was frayed, pieces billowing loose or held together by scar tissue and Castiel saw it the same moment as Gabriel. It was so thin and weak, barely a thread, threatening to snap at any moment from the pressure the archangel had placed on it in that moment of panic when there was nothing he could do for him from Purgatory.

Castiel swallowed uncomfortably, but didn't say anything. He had his own share of regrets and guilt to deal with, he wasn't going to stir up Gabriel's. He looked at the ground, hesitant for a moment before saying, "Is there any way I can help?"

Gabriel took in a deep breath. He hadn't doubted his brother for one second. Honestly, he hadn't. Of course he was going to offer help after seeing how broken Sam had almost ended and that it was partly because of his misguided attempt to help him. Neah, even Gabriel didn't believe that. It was more like they shared the blame for that last one and Castiel didn't really have room to judge, but that was a thought that Gabriel didn't want to entertain.

He let his breath out in a long sigh. Here goes everything. "I need to reach Sam. I need to get to him and he might be able to help us get out of here, especially if we have his brother." He wasn't exactly sure how Sam could help from the outside, but the kid was good for research at least and there weren't a hell of a lot of sources in here for them to find out anything more than they already knew. He needed to make sure Sam was alright. He needed to see for himself that the damage wasn't permanent. He wanted to cling to the giant moose with all his might and forget about how he'd gotten himself in here for a little while, before the hunter gave him a proper chewing out (which even Gabriel had to admit he deserved). He...

"You need to use me to get to him," Castiel concluded his own train of thought.

"I wouldn't put it exactly like that..." Gabriel protested, though that was exactly how he would put it if the situation were less serious. "And I need you to find Dean." He didn't want to sound pleading, but that's how his voice sounded to his own ears. "You can. I _know_ you can. Even if you keep him hidden from the Leviathan, there's plenty of other nasties here waiting to get their hands on him and I'm definitely not the only one who knows how much Purgatory hates the presence of a living mortal. They're either going to use him to get out, or worse and I don't even want to think about what happens to a human soul if they die in here."

Castiel nodded. "I'll try."

* * *

Gabriel had started taking naps whenever they stopped anywhere for long enough, clinging to Castiel's grace like a child to his favorite toy. The tangled mess that was his connection to Sam was slowly getting less tangled the more time he spent poking at it and pulling it from between the cracks and holes in Castiel's own self. There was something else there, too – another connection, a little stronger, but exposed and under even more strain than his. Gabriel was willing to bet what little grace he had left on who was at the other end of that thread, just as he was willing to bet that the two of them had placed it there without any outside intervention.

He didn't bring it up.

He was adapting based on the changes Castiel had absorbed from Sam when he'd 'fixed' him. On the way, he was soothing as much of Castiel's own damage as he could.

It wasn't really a surprise that Sam's thread tangled with Dean's. There were some places where they knotted, figuratively, and he was worried they'd break if he tried untangling them. He left them alone, but even so, for the first time since being cut off, Gabriel felt like there was room to breathe. He could reach out and know there was someone on the other end.

It took a while longer to get the connection right. He didn't want to blow it. He'd messed up once. He was taking it slow, setting the stage first – something neutral and familiar, though he wasn't sure how happy Sam would be about dreaming of crappy dinners and tasteless motel rooms – and nudging at his subconscious until it let him in.

The first time he'd made it through, Castiel shook him awake with a worried expression on his face. Gabriel's face was damp and he didn't even care he had been crying – Sam, despite his entire history with sharing headspace with other entities, had let Gabriel in!

* * *

It didn't surprise Gabriel that, when they finally found Dean, he was in the middle of a fight with a bunch of vampires. He was caked in blood and looking dangerous and feral. What did surprise him was that he was fighting side by side with a vampire and it looked like they've been doing that for a while.

There wasn't room for hellos at first, there was too much blood being spilled and vampires attacking blindly. Gabriel wondered if they were confident in the fact that there was no way they could get deader than they already were, or if they thought they have nothing else to lose. He wasn't sure how safe he and Castiel would be if they slipped up and allowed any of the monsters the upper hand, but they would still probably be better off than Dean. Probably, but not by much.

As for the hunter's new vampire friend, Gabriel was sure he'd bounce back from whatever Castiel did to him if he concluded he was a threat. Or if he allowed himself to act on rash impulses. Or...

With a sigh, Gabriel stepped between the three to prevent Castiel from doing something stupid.

"What's up with you, man?" Dean demanded. "I looked for you through this whole damn place and all you come up with is some sorry excuse about trying to protect me by abandoning me?"

Castiel was making a very poor effort at defending himself. Actually, he wasn't really making any effort at all, beyond the whole 'I was doing it to keep you safe' thing, that never actually worked on Dean Winchester.

"Easy there, Winchester," Gabriel warned.

The look on Dean's face showed something finally clicked. "Didn't you die?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" Gabriel retorted. It wasn't as funny as he expected it would be.

The spirits did calm down, some.

It turned out that the vampire had a plan. Gabriel would have been really surprised if no one else had spotted the opportunity Dean's presence provided for escape. The vampire wasn't stupid and, what's more, he'd even won Dean's protection, if not his loyalty, which meant they probably couldn't leave him behind if they got out.

The vampire had a surprising amount of sense (you know, for a dead-undead bloodsucker) and Gabriel found himself taking his side repeatedly in the following days. The two brought a reasonably sound plan to the table – they had a better idea of where to look for the elusive portal, since their interrogation methods seemed more suitable to this place – but something didn't sit well with Gabriel. While Dean could probably pass unscathed and he seemed to have worked out what to do with his vampire buddy, Gabriel was beginning to doubt it would work for him. Cas? Sure. The guy had come back from being exploded. He hadn't technically died this time, so it pretty much made sense that this was going to work for him. Gabriel felt like he'd lost most of his luck before he stood up to Lucifer. (Serves him right for toying with the heart of more than one deity of fortune).

They needed a backup plan and Gabriel knew he'd have to tell Dean about his connection with Sam, especially since he was going to realize something was going on when Gabriel

Dean didn't take the improved version of his brother's stay in the hospital very well.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ten years ago, Sam would have given almost anything to be on his own, to do whatever he pleased and not have to explain himself to anyone, but even then this would have been a price he wouldn't pay. Dean was gone, he had vanished along with Castiel when they took out Dick Roman – Sam had to assume they were both dead and he'd promised to leave it that way this time. Bobby was dead and his ghost was finally at rest. All their friends were either dead on in hiding – he couldn't blame the few survivors for not wanting anything to do with him.

At first, he tried holding on to the life he knew better than he knew himself at first, throwing himself into hunting with everything he had. A lifestyle he never wanted and never thought he needed. It took a few weeks to hunt down and dispatch the few remaining Leviathans – still dangerous without their leader, but lacking structure and strategy. He went after some of the more mundane monsters still lurking around once Leviathans were no longer a problem. In the time since the Apocalypse that wasn't, right under the watchful eyes of the Leviathans, a new breed of hunters had turned up, more computer savvy, disguising their networks as forums for obscure games and generally hiding in plain sight. They were young hunters, like Garth, building on the legacy of the old guard, or kids that had been brought up on the road much like Sam and Dean, second generation hunters who had more trust in technology than their parents.

Anyway, the kids were good and hunting without Dean seemed pointless.

At one point, he tried picking up the life he'd first left his family for. He couldn't just call—many had changed their numbers since then, others had vanished off the face of the earth (it brought on some worrying thoughts, but he couldn't go hunting for each of them).

For a while, he simply drifted aimlessly, from motel to motel, eating increasingly crappy food and just not giving a fuck about his life.

Dean was gone. That was his only certainty at that point. There was no sense in hunting; there was no sense in going back to Stanford. He was getting too old to wander around aimlessly, but he had nowhere to be, so he kept going.

Three months on his own and the dreams started.

It was always an undefined setting – a diner on the side of some God forsaken country road leading from one forgotten town to another; a dirty old motel room that blended bits and pieced from every other one he'd slept in; a dark forest, with the trees shifting and whispering in the night, just out of the corner of his eyes. At first it was just that, being alone in a place that could have been anywhere, or nowhere, and a feeling of anticipation, like he knew _something_ was supposed to happen, just not what or when. One night, Sam was sitting at a booth in one of those diners without a personality. The place was empty, except for him, and the ghost that had taken his order had yet to return. He was absently tearing a napkin to bits when a strawberry milkshake appeared in front of him with a plop and a dead archangel smirking at him from behind it. If they spoke that night, Sam couldn't remember after.

For a week, he ordered strawberry milkshakes with his lunch. He couldn't really tell why.

Gabriel was lounging on a purple bedspread in a garish looking motel room in another dream. He looked impatient and excited, barely able to hold in his enthusiasm at having found Sam. In the morning, Sam couldn't remember if he'd gotten anything else out of that dream.

* * *

Sam was consoling himself with the thought that his sanity was slipping. It wasn't the dreams – right now, they were the most normal part about his life. No, it was his relief at having them. They were getting more and more textured and real each night, though it took another couple of weeks before he could actually talk to Gabriel in them.

A small part of him perversely wished this was all part of that never-ending Tuesday, so he could get Gabriel to cut it out and let them get back to their lives. He would agree to whatever terms and offer to trade anything for his help to keep Dean out of Hell. But that was long ago and he doubted the Trickster had enough patience to play such a long trick.

That night, they were in another diner, only this one was decked out in neon colours and slightly not there. It was as if someone was trying to control reality and made a poor job at keeping it in check. They were seated at a booth, with a large sundae each. Gabriel was devouring his like his life depended on it. Sam had learned that these dreams were an escape for him and his indulgences here, something he just went along with. If Gabriel could pull more interesting settings out of Sam's subconscious, he probably would, but he had to restrict his treats to sweets and unhealthy food.

"Why aren't you dead?" he asked when Gabriel was done with his bowl.

"I am," he admitted cheerfully. "It hasn't stopped me before."

Sam thought of the hallucinations. They'd stopped once Castiel had been able to fix him, but the angel had never said anything about Lucifer or Gabriel after he left the hospital, so Sam had concluded it had all been in his head and once it was fixed, it was over.

"You were there," Sam said quietly, pinning his stare on the ice cream in front of him, rather than the angel across the table. It wasn't a question. The sort of relationship they shared made the possibility perfectly valid.

"There wasn't much I could do."

Gabriel sounded pained, so Sam looked back up and almost winced – he looked so small and distant, like he wasn't actually there. He wasn't, of course, but even for a dream, he had too little substance and he was spending most of his strength on the stupid setting.

He remembered the ghostly touches, the comfort he'd taken in the knowledge that he wasn't alone, even if he knew the angel was as much part of his cracked subconscious as the devil. If Gabriel really had been there, then...

"Don't go there!" Gabriel snapped before Sam could start scratching at the scars left by Lucifer. He had been there, too. "It's better to leave it, at least for now."

Sam wasn't going to just drop it, but he had time to think about the implications when he was awake. Who knew how much time they had now?

"So? How did you get in here?" he eventually asked, prodding at the melting ice cream.

Gabriel looked around, worried.

The edges of the diner were blurring and growing dark and the colours around them were growing brighter. Sam's eyes were beginning to hurt so he dropped his gaze again. In the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something red in the window, but Gabriel distracted him from looking again.

"Kali did something."

A raised eyebrow. "That doesn't really tell me much," Sam insisted.

"I'm not exactly sure what it was, myself."

Gabriel snapped his fingers and the remains of his sundae vanished, being replaced with a banana milkshake. He stole a glance to the side at the window and Sam thought, for a moment, that he saw the reflection of something red.

"She used the blood." It was obvious really, Sam thought.

"Yeah," Gabriel confirmed, stretching the middle vowel. "Wasn't expecting her to use it for anything like this, though."

"You have to make more sense than that," he admonished, giving Gabriel one of the bitchfaces usually reserved for when Dean was being deliberately unhelpful.

He felt a pull and the surrounding diner became a little more solid, the colours creeping into the shadows. It still didn't have much of a personality, but it felt a lot more familiar. The flash of red he'd caught out to the side briefly took on a more defined shape – an angel banishing sigil, though something was off about it.

The pull eased and he noticed Gabriel was staring. Their surroundings eased back into a less defined setting, fading into darkness.

Gabriel looked away and Sam realized he could just about feel the connection between them. He tried visualizing it – a thread connecting the two of them. It was weak, though, thin as silk and he worried that if he tried tugging on in to see what happens, it would tear. Instead, he asked, "You were there since Elysian Fields?"

"Took me a while to figure out what was happening and what I could do with it."

Sam thought of the dreams he'd had at the time, before jumping into the Pit. Some of them had been... vivid.

Gabriel probably could read that thought, because he was vehemently shaking his head. "I only did the one! And I wasn't sure it was actually getting through!" he protested.

Sam didn't ask which one it had been. He didn't ask anything else, because Gabriel seemed to suddenly let go of the connection and the dream diner was fading away around them.

* * *

Sam's days were slow and mostly filled with research. He dug up all their research on Purgatory again, to see if they'd missed anything. At this point, it wasn't the days he was looking forward to, but the nights.

The nights that followed brought on more dreams, though Gabriel was less inclined to ramble for a while after.

"You were soulless! And then there was that wall Death put up to protect you, and the ones you put up yourself every time you scratched at it to see what lay behind. And when the wall went down, there I was among the rubble – one tiny piece among all that wreckage. And then my brother showed up!" Gabriel looked at him with pleading eyes. "Sam, believe me when I say I wasn't doing it to torment you."

The thing was Sam knew he was telling the truth. He didn't know how or why he was so sure of it, but Gabriel wasn't lying, not about this.

They were surrounded by forest this time. Tall trees and dark shadows were looming over them and bright eyes watched them from the darkness.

Dean and Castiel were with Gabriel. Both were in Purgatory for some reason. When Sam had asked Gabriel why _he_ was in Purgatory, he simply pointed at his own nose and said "Trickster."

"Okay, you changed. Do you mean Dean and Castiel are... what now?" Sam asked. There were so many possible answers to that – that time he'd let Dean get turned into a vampire, his stay in Hell, Castiel absorbing the souls of Purgatory, getting possessed by the Leviathans... taking Lucifer's influence onto himself... So many points where either of them could have become anything other than human or angel. They didn't need to change into something else for centuries to earn a spot in Purgatory once Dick blew up in their faces.

"Not monsters," Gabriel assured him. "Pretty much still alive, funnily enough."

That was a relief, but...

"How does that help us?" he had to ask, because relief or not, there was no way Sam could reproduce the ritual Castiel had performed to open a gate.

"There's this portal," Gabriel shrugged. "At least, some of the denizens keep talking of this portal that's supposed to expel any human souls that might accidentally get trapped here."

"You don't believe that," Sam noted.

The shadows were moving in closer, their eyes boring into Sam's head.

Gabriel looked up at him, looking a little ghostly. "Oh, I _know_ it's there. I might not have paid a lot of attention to this place back in the day, but I've been in here long enough to do some exploring of my own. It's there... somewhere."

"Couldn't find it?"

"Didn't need to. I was dead and this was apparently where I belonged. Not much I could do about that," he explained casually.

Sam didn't really buy that. "But?"

"It might work for Cas, but I doubt Dean's gonna let me ride his ass out of here." He chuckled at the thought. "It's gonna be a bit crowded this way."

"What about..." _This? Us?_ He left the question hanging, instead pulling on the thread connecting them.

The shadows drew even closer, but Gabriel became slightly more solid. He blinked at Sam in surprise.

"I don't think it works that way, Samsquatch," he sighed.

"How does it work, then?" Sam snapped. "You clearly had enough power to exorcise those demons back at the hospital!" That part had been nagging at Sam's brain ever since Gabriel popped back into his dreams. If Lucifer had only been a product of his imagination, someone _had_ to have exorcized those demons and it wasn't Castiel.

Gabriel went quiet and ghostly again.

"Find Kali," he said. "I don't think you want to get stuck with me in your head for ever by accident and I doubt it would help Dean and Cas much. Except, you know, then they'd be able to go through that portal without feeling guilty, leaving me behind."

* * *

Charlie Bradbury may know how to make herself vanish, but Sam was pretty sure he knew how to attract her attention. After being exposed to the sort of world the Winchesters dealt with, regardless how fervently she refused to get involved with it, she wasn't the kind of person to turn her back and run. Hide? Yes, definitely. She was being careful and keeping a low profile, but there were rumors.

Sam had talked with his few remaining contacts after the dreams had started. He needed to find Kali and get a proper explanation from her. Whatever this connection she'd created between him and Gabriel was, it had its limits and Sam wanted to know them before agreeing to anything that might put his life in danger. At the moment, he didn't really care what she did it for. So he asked around and, while her name was never actually mentioned by any of them, his search led him to a young, red-haired hunter-in-training that was suspiciously good with computers and was mostly focusing on the pagans. After Leviathan's and demons, Sam couldn't blame her.

He makes sure Charlie knows he wants to be found and leaves the finding up to her. He doesn't have to spell out his position – he uses his credit card a few times on some obviously hunter-related purchases, makes sure it's on a name she could connect to them and keeps his laptop turned on while he takes a nap.

* * *

Gabriel is nowhere in sight. The setting of the dream isn't one of their usuals, either – it's a deserted beach, with palms on one side and waves crushing onto the shore on the other. It's an empty dream.

Sam doesn't have the time to let his subconscious process the day's events now.

He concentrates until he can make out the shape of Gabriel in his mind. When he finds him, he visualizes their link – a silk thread, since that's the image that got engrained in his imagination – and gently tugs on it.

There's no response at first. Then, there's a wave of curiosity rippling through the thread. Eventually, the beach fades away and the crappy motel room he fell asleep in replaces it. Perched on the headboard above him, a translucent Gabriel is looking down on Sam with incredulous curiosity.

"What did you just do?" he asks quietly.

For a moment, Sam thought he was actually back in his room, but the edges were fading into the darkness that always seemed to follow Gabriel into his dreams. He sat up and looked the archangel in the eye. He didn't think it was that big of a deal, after all, Gabriel had been visiting his dreams for weeks now.

"Same thing you've been doing, I assume," he said with a shrug.

Gabriel slowly shook his head. "I never pulled you in. Since Cas... since the hospital..." he kept hesitating. "I've been navigating little bro's noggin to get to you. He took the mess inside your mind and moved it into his – that was his great plan to rid you Lucifer, remember? I've been helping him put things back into place, but it's slow work. Your brother keeps making fun of me for 'clinging to Cas' in my sleep."

"Do you?"

"I don't _have_ to. Not anymore. But he makes the funniest faces when I tell him to get his own Teddy bear," Gabriel said with a smirk. "It's not the physical sort of clinging, anyway." He sounded as if he wanted to ease Sam's mind about something, but Sam wasn't sure why.

Sam sighed. "So you're sleeping now, too?"

"I wasn't. You pulled me out in the middle of explaining to Deano that he can't keep picking up strays," Gabriel explained, trailing off after he mentioned 'strays', like it was something he wasn't really supposed to talk about.

Sam pretended he didn't notice. "We better make this quick, then. I'm looking through our research from last time and that damn ritual is the only thing I can come up with. I put word out for a... friend to get in touch with me. She has the skills to help with research and I think Kali will be more willing to talk to her."

Gabriel smirked. "Well, I guess someone whose default setting isn't 'murder' _would_ get more out of Kali than you. No offense."

Sam sighed. "I don't see how you're so sure she won't be seen as a threat, but yeah, that's pretty much the plan. Plus, she's poking around in the pagan corners of the local supernatural things. She's making a bit of a name for herself, I think."

Gabriel seemed thoughtful for a moment, before he brightened up. "Look into the Fae side of things. Those buggers don't live on the same plane as you and don't give a rat's ass about the way things are divided for other creatures – a bit of pagan, a bit of Fae... and you can probably go into Hell and get back with little more than a scorched eyebrow." He was smirking again. Knowing Gabriel, he definitely had history with them.

It made sense. The realms fairies lived in occupied different dimensions, the same as Hell, Haven and Purgatory, and there were tales of them crossing borders with ease. Unfortunately, the only encounter they'd had with the Fae... "The one time we ran into them, they were pretending to be aliens," Sam said slowly.

"They're still doing that?" Gabriel laughed. It was nice.

"Yeah... I don't remember details. Stuff that happened when I was soulless is a bit murky, but I think Dean microwaved one and he was definitely abducted," Sam explained a bit flustered. "I don't think they'll be very eager to help."

"Okay, I see what you mean." Gabriel was looking thoughtful again, probably running through a mental checklist – things that want to kill us, things we've tried to kill, things we've killed, things that have killed us in the past... He frowned at Sam very pointedly. "Stop that! You know how weird it is to have you snooping in there?" he snapped.

Sam was confused. "What did I do?"

Gabriel gave him a puzzled look. "You really don't know?"

There was a flood of confusion flowing through their link, accompanied by curiosity and undefined thoughts. Sam could almost sift through them and, as he pulled and tugged, he realized this wasn't just a part of the dream – Gabriel was doing the same and could tell what Sam was doing even when he didn't. "Oh!"

"You'll need to gain access through Faery from one of the Lords – you can probably get to Purgatory from there without messy sacrifices and dubious rituals. See what you can get out of Kali with your friend and I'll figure out who in Faery isn't willing to kill you to get back at me or just to screw with you. I can think of a few, but I have to ask Dean who he microwaved, first. You two are about as bad as me at making friends!" Gabriel whined. "Look, I probably shouldn't let your brother dear around my unconscious self for long. Don't wanna wake up with a dick on my face."

"You have sharpies in Purgatory?" Sam chuckled.

"There's only so long until he figures out how to use charcoal for drawing, Samsquach. Even cavemen figured it out at some point."

* * *

Sam's laptop was displaying a bland looking dialog box.

_You suck at lying low. _

He was going to try again, but for now, Sam went back to research – there was entirely too much lore of fairies to get though everything in any sort of timely fashion, but he was going to dig as deep as he could.

Hours later, Sam was startled out of his reading by a knock on the door. Knowing he hadn't ordered anything – the room service was purely theoretical – and he wasn't expecting anyone, he reached for his gun before silently walking to the door. With the gun at the ready, he asked who it was. He got an exasperated "Come on, Sam!" in a familiar female voice in response.

He opened the door a crack and recognized Charlie's fiery hair along with the rest of her, lower in his field of vision. "You _suck_ at lying low," she informed him again.

"How'd you get here this fast?" he asked, looking from her, to his laptop and then back at her again.

She shrugged. "I've been keeping an eye on you since Dick went down. Then you stared sending out signals like crazy and I had to check in on you."

He put the gun away, but still within reach, and opened the door all the way. "Thought you weren't coming," he said, looking her up and down, worried it might be a trap. He didn't think it was, which was odd, because he usually was more circumspect than that.

"No, I just said you stick out. Sometimes, I wonder how the two of you even survived so far," she said, sticking out her hand and wiggling her fingers. "Come on, let's get it over with! Salt, holy water, silver? Give it here!" she insisted, smirking a little when Sam moved away to retrieve the items.

"It was easier than going off to look for you," Sam shrugged. He poured holy water into one of the motel glasses – an ancient thing whose silver rim surprisingly enough contained actual silver and probably hadn't been stolen simply because no one imagined it was the real deal. "Mind if I just put some salt in this and get it out of the way faster?"

Charlie rocked on her heals just outside the door, like an impatient kind. "Might as well. People are gonna start wondering why you're letting a nice girl like me wait outside your door for so long."

He handed her the glass. She drank the salty water in one gulp, and then handed it back to him. "May I come in, now?" she asked.

Sam waved for her to come in and pulled out the only chair in the room for her. She took it, straddling it backwards and Sam started pacing.

"Sorry about Dean," she blurted and somehow some of her unease made more sense now.

Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. "That's one of the things I needed to talk to you about."

She waited patiently for him to continue, to explain, as best he could, what happened to Dean and Castiel when they defeated Dick and how he knew what happened after. He had to walk her through their history with Gabriel and once he got to the connection they shared, Charlie burst out laughing.

"Dude, you got soul bonded?" she asked when she got her breath back.

Sam watched her patiently. The term seemed to apply to his situation, somewhat... but he couldn't help feeling there was something behind that combination of words that he should be worried about. "Not sure what you're talking about," he said.

Charlie was smirking, the sort of knowing smirk that told Sam he probably wasn't going to like the answer. She stood up and grabbed Sam's arm to stop him pacing. "You should probably sit down for this," she explained, nudging him towards the bed. He complied, watching her curiously. "It wasn't just lore I started looking into after we parted last time. Did you know there's a series of books about you?" she asked.

Sam groaned and she took it as an affirmative answer.

"We should have burned those."

"Kind of hard now, seeing as they're all over the internet and all." She gave him a pat on the shoulder, meant to be comforting, but made awkward by her hesitance to continue. "And it's not just the books," she eventually said in a quieter voice.

"There's fanfic, I know," Sam sighed. "We're not getting into a debate about slash!"

She held up her hands in surrender. "Wasn't going to. Just wanted to point out that it's 'a thing', this soul bond, or whatever it is. Thought you'd get a kick out of it."

Sam crashed back onto the bed. "I bet it is," he groaned. "And consider me kicked."

"At least Gabe seems fun," Charlie said, sitting down on the bed next to him. "You can do with some fun, when you sort this Purgatory thing."

"I'm not gonna ask what version of the books you were reading," Sam grumbled, pushing himself into a sitting position. "The reason I was looking for you is that I need to get in touch with one of the pagan gods and rumor has it you're making a bit of a name for yourself in that area," he finally explained.

Charlie shrugged. "I don't know about that, I've been doing my best not to get recognized and I haven't killed any gods lately," she protested.

"Precisely. I only found you because we were both looking to be found, I guess," he started. "And I don't think the goddess I'm looking for would be very glad to see a hunter."

Charlie gave him a steady look. "You want to find Kali," she said simply.

Sam nodded.

"Makes sense, since she bound Gabe to you and I can't think of many gods in your recorded history that actually saved your asses," she reasoned and Sam found himself feeling slightly uncomfortable every time she referred to Gabriel as Gabe – he wasn't sure if _he_ was thinking of Gabriel as Gabe yet and it was usually Dean who came up with the nicknames.

She started digging in her pockets for her smartphone and scrolled through some articles until she found what she needed. "I actually think I might have a lead already. I was working on a case about a New Age group that's apparently very into Kali. No one died, yet, but I was wondering if she might actually be involved."

It was more of a lead than anything Sam had found over the past few days. He needed to talk to Gabriel first. A lead on Faery would help, too – he couldn't have pissed off everyone!

"How soon can we see if your lead on Kali is good?"

Charlie looked at her phone. "It's a couple of towns over. If we leave in the morning, we can be there by noon, I guess."

Everything seemed to be almost at hand these days. Somehow, Sam hadn't managed to catch an actual brake yet and he was wary of things that came too easy, but he nodded and asked Charlie if she needed a room for the night. They were getting an early start the following day and she agreed to stay at the motel, but decided to get a separate room.

Sam didn't go to bed until midnight, when Charlie had retired to her room after spending hours sifting through every piece of information available online on the nature of fairy gates and how far they reached. They even found a couple of rituals that allegedly summoned some powerful Fae, but they needed to know who was safe to turn to, first.

* * *

"Your brother is a dick," he informed Sam.

They were in Sam's current motel room. His laptop was sitting abandoned on the surprisingly tidy table – everything had been packed away so they wouldn't get distracted in the morning. The shadows were still creeping in the corners and the window was adorned with the modified angel banishing sigil, so they were probably in Sam's dream.

"Hello to you, too," Sam mumbled, getting out of bed. "Is this about charcoal and dicks?" he asked suspiciously.

Gabriel didn't answer.

Sam went to the point. "We might have a lead on Kali and we looked into the fairy angle. It might work, but we'll have to be _really_ careful what deals we make to get any of them to side with us."

Gabriel plopped himself down on the bed next to Sam. "Already told you the first part and I thought you were smart enough to figure the second out – how many fairy tales went sower because of a breach of contract? These guys are worse than demons when it comes to deals!"

Sam leaned a little against Gabriel. The angel's shoulder felt solid, as real as a dream allowed. "Did you narrow your list down?" Sam asked, bumping their shoulders together.

"Well," Gabriel began, theatrically counting each point on more than one finger. "I took out everyone I got killed at least three times, and those I was caught in compromising situations with... and those who caught me in compromising situations... and anyone that might have taken offense to the stuff you two pulled..." He trailed off, the fingers of both hands tangled in his lap.

Sam was watching him untangle and flex his fingers. "And that leaves us with..." he prompted.

"Well... there's one aspect of the Erlking that owes me a debt, so I doubt he'll try anything too funny. Other than him, all I could come up with are some minor Fae with little sway over others and even less over the land. On short notice, he's your best bet."

Sam wanted to know how Gabriel could be that certain, so he let the question thrum through their bond and watched to the angel's reaction. It came in a startled retreat, as if the place where their shoulders touched had burned him, but he sat down and leaned back against Sam, shifting a little more weight onto the point of contact. "I got him his kingdom," Gabriel answered the unspoken question.

The rest of the night faded into restless dreams of a more usual kind – anxiety for the next day's exploits, missing Dean and worrying that when he'd get his brother back, things wouldn't work out, or worse yet, that he wouldn't get Dean back even if they got everyone's help.

* * *

Charlie was talking to an Indian goddess and Sam was being left out, even though they were talking about him. The lead on the New Age group turned out to be true and they found Kali hiding out in a magic shop. She looks as fierce in her small frame and everyday clothes as she did facing down Lucifer at Elysian Fields and Sam almost gets to feel the fire of her anger the moment she recognizes him.

Sam is not allowed in the shop.

Unsurprisingly, Kali likes Charlie. "She doesn't beat bout the bush and doesn't start a discussion with plans for murder, like some hunters I could name," the goddess hisses as she drives Sam out with the power of her glare. He doesn't get to protest that he wasn't planning murder the last time, least of all then.

Charlie doesn't come out for a long time and when she does, it's to call Sam back in. The lights are dim now and Kali looks less willing to kill him.

"Your friend," she begins, looking at Charlie, "informs me that you are bound to Gabriel."

Sam nods.

"I created that thread to prevent him dying." She was choosing her words carefully and kept looking at Charlie from the corner of her eye, despite addressing Sam. "I did not get the chance to do anything for him before the Light Barer came and I did not design this spell to work from beyond the grave, but I am told that he can reach you from Purgatory."

"I think it goes both ways," Sam objected. He had actually managed to contact Gabriel on his own, though he didn't presume he would have been able to without Gabriel untangling the thread on his end.

Kali smiled, but her mood didn't lighten. "I gave Charlie a potion for you. It will help you contact Gabriel without being asleep or hallucinating. It won't last forever, so I suggest using it wisely. If you succeed in bringing him back, congratulations. If you don't, know that it is not my fault. Either way, I hope we won't meet again, Winchester. I am, as you humans would put it, keeping a low profile – I've done nothing that would warrant a hunter's intervention and you will only serve to provoke me if you return."

"We won't," Charlie assured her. She kept touching her cheek and sneaking glances at the goddess when she thought no one was looking.

"So this is what you do now? Selling New Age trinkets?" Sam asked and even he wasn't sure if he was aiming for derisive or worried.

Kali smirked. "Don't you worry about me, darling. I have enough worshipers still to keep me going. This is only a distraction," she said, making a wide sweep with one hand meant to encompass the whole store. "You get to meet the most interesting people."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Castiel was attracting more and more attention to himself with each passing day. With five people, it was hard to keep a low profile, especially when one of the party was the ticket out that everyone was trying to get their hands on and another was a powered down angel that still had enough Grace to make him seem worth the trouble of getting killed to get their hands on it. Gabriel himself was getting some of his strength back, but he still managed to pass mostly unobserved since he preferred to hiding and hand to hand combat to using his tricks and Grace in here. As for Benny, well what was another vampire in Purgatory?

But they weren't five, were they? It was perhaps a good thing that Gabriel never tried counting their group aloud, or someone might have noticed the discrepancy. The fifth member of the group, of course, wasn't actually with them and Dean would probably have a fit if Gabriel so much as suggested it, but Sam was near constantly on his mind.

While he couldn't talk to him other than when they were both asleep, it was increasingly easy for Gabriel to catch brief flashes of whatever Sam was feeling or thinking at the time. It was as if Sam had completed a circuit that first time he had drawn Gabriel into his dream, too impatient to wait until Gabriel could have checked in on him on his own. It was easier for Gabriel to make his way into Sam's dreams now, too, no longer needing Castiel as an intermediary. That last bit of thread that had still been snared by Castiel's Grace had been pried loose by Sam's initiation of contact.

At least, that was what Gabriel told himself.

What the two of them shared at that point wasn't a very clear way of communication – not a telephone, but two plastic cups tied with string – it worked, but there was no room for details. It was enough to let Gabriel know if Sam was in danger, he hoped. Not that he could do anything to help, but his pragmatic side insisted that it would be better to know if they lost that way out, at least.

Benny was scouting ahead. He was the least conspicuous, so it only seemed fair. And on top of that, he had proven himself as a good fighter. Left on his own, without the prospect of a legendary exit or companions that could just as well have bull's eye painted on their backs, he would probably do just fine – few creatures here would be foolish enough to try and attack him and he could handle himself if any were so inclined.

"What sort of vampire is called Benny?" Gabriel had asked the first time after Benny had stood by his side during his meeting with Sam.

Benny smiled teasingly and replied in that melodious cadence that seemed to have rubbed off on Dean as well, "One that wasn't written to please teenagers."

Gabriel shrugged. Well, not all vampires could have cool names, but his made him sound downright cuddly. On this, Gabriel managed to be proven both wrong and right – when it came to fighting, Benny was ruthless and pragmatic, never allowing an enemy to get the advantage. However, those fighting skills were usually employed to save Dean's ass during fights and generally keep the nasties away. It hadn't taken long for Gabriel to warm up to him – the guy was fun to be around, vampire or not, and he had gained enough sway over Dean to force him to talk his issues out with Castiel and Gabriel can never begrudge anyone who tries to defuse the drama before it becomes an issue.

Instead, Gabriel turns to Dean when he's feeling antsy. He's not willing to start any serious shit, but he hasn't been around these many being without a fight brewing and he's rather have that out of the way in controlled bursts. So he brings up the Southern Drawl that Dean has picked up and how his cadence has shifted under Benny's influence. It's not a sore spot for anyone, but it does launch the two in a harmless exchange of insults and lewd jokes about Dean's mouth and what he does with it. This has the added bonus of uniting Cas and Benny in their confusion – Castiel doesn't understand the obsession with Dean's mouth and what the accent has to do with anything, while Benny is more concerned by the tone of the jokes.

Dean was 'explaining' to Gabriel what he'd do to him if he was stuck building a fire again for nothing – it involved charcoal from said fire, Gabriel's unconscious form and Dean's very limited artistic talents – when Gabriel felt it. The bond between himself and Sam vibrated like a plucked string and a rush of emotion flooded into him. It was followed by a familiar feeling that he couldn't place. Dean was suddenly quiet and was watching Gabriel intently, like he'd grown another head or had suddenly appeared in his angelic form. Castiel was staring as well.

His surroundings faded to black, flickered into what was probably a cheap motel room, back into Purgatory and continued to flicker a few more times until they settled into an image that combined the two. All the while, he felt overwhelmed by fear and anticipation and a part of him that wasn't actually his was wondering about Kali's intentions. Ah, so Sam had found her!

Having no reason to pull back, Gabriel pushed through the connection, following the thread to the end. It was much easier than any of his previous attempts and when he blinked, it wasn't just the setting that had overlapped – Castiel and Dean had faded into the background and there was Sam, vibrating with the same anxiety that had filtered down the line, and next to him, a red-haired young woman, looking slightly worried and slightly disappointed. If he made an effort, he could keep Sam and his friend in the foreground.

"It's not working," the young woman said, watching a spot a few steps to Gabriel's side. He tilted his head and watched her back – she didn't notice.

"This the friend you told me about, Samsquatch?" he asked when Sam's eyes finally focused on him. The kid's stance relaxed a little and a sense of relief flooded through the connection. Sam nodded and his face eased into a smile. "What didn't work?"

"I think I'm the only one that can see him," Sam told the girl and she rolled her eyes fondly – 'obviously!' she seemed to say. "Um... hi, Gabe," Sam said, taking a step toward him. "This is Charlie."

The girl reacted to the introduction with a suspicious and ironic curtsy in Gabriel's general direction. He liked her already. He smirked and waved hello, confirming that she didn't actually see him.

"So..." Charlie began, looking at Sam for something more real to focus on. "Can he see me?"

Sam nodded. "Yes and he just waved hello."

"I was expecting something more... flashy to happen," she confessed. "I guess having an angel on your shoulder doesn't hurt, either."

"Can we not go back to the part where you had your very own angel and demon combo? It wasn't fun for anyone," Gabriel said, shuddering a little at the thought.

"I'll take what I can," Sam said. Gabriel could feel some of his suspicions about Kali ease away. He agreed with the sentiment, though he'd had a few more years to work at that.

In the background, Dean was cautiously waving a hand in front of Gabriel's eyes. It occurred to Gabriel that this must look like a weird sort of one sided phone conversation, except the human probably didn't know it was supposed to look like that. He grabbed Dean's hand and eased it away. "I didn't suddenly snap, Deano! Just talking to your brother," he assured him.

A fond smile briefly formed on Sam's face, but the accompanying mix of feelings made him add, "He misses you."

Dean froze for a second, before stepping back. Gabriel couldn't hear what Cas was telling him, but his little brother wrapped an arm around the hunter's shoulders and pulled him away. They were giving him space. This was already shaping to be weirder than when he was asleep.

"Have you summoned the Goblin King yet?" he asked Sam.

"I had Charlie perform the spell Kali taught her. I wanted to have an advantage going into this," he explained and you didn't need any other insight into Sam's feelings to tell how nervous he was about this. If anything were to go wrong, he probably wanted to know ahead of time.

Charlie had pulled out a chair and was sitting mid-way between Sam and where Sam could see Gabriel standing. She waved a hand dismissingly. "I just followed instructions and used the potion she gave me. Now, if you wanna praise me for my tracking skills and computer savvy, then you'd be on the mark – this lady was hard to find! You're lucky I she was already on my radar."

* * *

The ritual to summon the Goblin King takes most of the night. Sam is determined not to let his brother spend another day in purgatory if he can help it, so he pours all his energy into this.

Gabriel is there, watching him and Charlie prepare the summoning spell. Every now and then, he'd cut in with advice on how to modify the spell to reach this particular incarnation, rather than one of the more aggressive, pissed-at-Gabriel or resentful-of-Dean versions. Charlie was making Labyrinth and The Hobbit jokes about how they should just say the magic words.

"Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be, get my ass into Purgatory, please," she recited over the bowl in which they had just mixed the right herbs to paint the appropriate sigil on the floor.

"Gabe says not to antagonize the Fae before they even show up," Sam tells her, but Gabriel is actually sniggering.

"Well, I'd rather have David Bowie than the big blobby one." She sticks a rag into the concoction and begins to smear it onto the floor as her half of the sigil.

Sam begins work on his side, with Gabriel hovering unseen over his shoulder. It makes him chuckle. "You're taking this guardian angel thing a bit too literal, Gabe!" he says.

"Well, sorry if I don't want you to end up with Woden in your laps, or worse," Gabriel protested. "You need to make those lines more even." He was pointing at a part of the design they needed to merge in the middle. Sam passed that info to Charlie.

Charlie had quickly taken to talking directly to Gabriel and relying on Sam to relay the answer. She wanted to know which version this was, exactly. The Wild Hunt came up and how the current king of the goblins had gone from hunter to ruling over a realm of castaways. Gabriel, as Loki, had helped him shape this new persona at a time when people's faith in old gods was waning and there were Faery realms up for grabs – he had reshaped himself the way Gabriel had become Loki, though the Trickster/Archangel had yet to reveal his original nature to his ally. Since his kingdom was home to the unwanted, it bordered nearly every other major realm, so their driftwood could find its way there.

The sigil was complete and Charlie was giving a smug grin to the general area where Gabriel was. "Show time!" she announced.

Gabriel nodded and stepped closer to Sam. "Just pretend I'm not here. If Miss Bradbury can't see me, it's probably true of everyone else." Sam relayed this with extra emphasis on the 'Miss Bradbury', which amused Charlie.

He began reciting the incantation, with Gabriel standing close, pedantically correcting his pronunciation.

In a flash of smoke and a spark of glitter, there stood in the spot marked with the carefully painted sigil not an ancient looking Fae Lord that might have stepped out of a Victorian illustration, but...

"Holy Bowie!" Charlie whistled.

Gabriel was stifling a snigger at Sam's side, not wanting to risk giving himself away in case their guest could actually sense him.

Sam just swallowed his surprise and greeted him respectfully.

Indeed, the Goblin King looked... like the Goblin King Charlie had been joking about only moments earlier. From the anime hair to the tight pants and high leather boots, even the crooked teeth, this Fae Lord looked like the spitting image of 80's David Bowie and everyone was familiar with Labyrinth. He did not look at all impressed with being called into a crappy motel room and he seemed to at least suspect what the humans in the room were thinking about his looks. He stood tall and smiled mischievously.

"What is it you want, mortals?" not!Bowie asked.

Gabriel had insisted they don't ask for a favor. They were to call in his debt, confident that he still had the advantage in their relationship. Sam hesitated to jump right in, but time was passing by. He introduced himself and Charlie as Loki's messengers. "He asks that you repay one of his favors."

The Goblin King looks Sam in the eye, his mismatched eyes boring past his surface defenses. "And why isn't Loki here to ask this of me himself?" His lips curl in an unkind smile.

"At the moment, Loki is stuck in Purgatory along with my brother. He asks that you grant me safe passage through your land into Purgatory so I may bring them back into this world," Sam recites the speech Gabriel had prepared for him. Despite the angel's muttered prompts, he had managed not to stumble over his words.

The Goblin King looked intrigued. "Is he, now?" He was still studying Sam, but his stance had relaxed somewhat. It felt like he was in control of the situation, even if he was supposed to answer to them – the ritual that summoned him wasn't a very powerful bond, but they were relying on Gabriel's sway for that.

"He helped you take charge," Charlie prompted.

The Goblin King nodded. "That, he did. He also shaped me into what I am today," he admitted. "And I do, indeed, owe him a debt." He pondered for a moment. "You are one of mine," he concluded, looking at Sam once again.

Sam wasn't thrilled by this proclamation. Gabriel wasn't either, but any form of defensive posturing he could adopt was wasted on a being who couldn't tell he was there.

The Goblin King walked right up to Sam and cheerfully explained, "You're a hunter – that calls to me from days long past. They are gone, but not forgotten, and even if you hunt those of my kind, it still makes you one of mine."

Sam didn't flinch, but only because he imagined the feel of Gabriel's hand as it gently squeezed his shoulder.

"And things lost and long forgotten are now my realm, thanks to Loki. I know a lost soul when I see one, hunter, and yours has a long way to go until it gets home. This, too, makes you one of mine. So debt or no debt, I will aid you," he finished, retreating a few steps with unsurprising grace.

Gabriel took in a long breath. He was expecting more.

He was right.

"Since you are in search of your brother and seeing it is our friend Loki that has granted me the position which lets me aid you in your quest, I have but one condition and I am sure you will find it more than reasonable," the Goblin King said smoothly.

Sam steeled himself, unsure what Fae might classify as 'reasonable' under such circumstances.

"The portal that gives you access to any other realm bordering my own is at the heart of my land. To get your brother back, you'll have to run my labyrinth," he explained, too pleased with himself. "Do you agree?"

"He still hasn't forgiven me for the movie," Gabriel chuckled. He nodded, so Sam could see it out of the corner of his eye.

"How long do I get," he asked, expecting and getting the thirteen hours the movie had promised. He agreed.

The Goblin King snapped a silver fob watch out of the air and handed it to Sam. Its face was neatly divided into thirteen sections, and the seconds were already ticking away. "You have until the clock strikes thirteen to bring them back, after that, I cannot guarantee their safety, nor yours. I suggest we get this started."

With another snap of his fingers, Sam found himself at the gate to the kingdom, the entrance to the labyrinth. The clock was ticking away seconds and its unusual number of divisions was making Sam feel uneasy about this prospect.

There was no trace of the Goblin King in sight, but neither was there any of Gabriel.

Sam looked at the clock, then at the gates and then proceeded to enter, since there was no other way to complete this challenge. As he was walking down the first corridor, looking for the nearest opening, Gabriel appeared again at his side, looking a little shaken and worse for wear.

"What happened to you?" Sam asked, worry filling his voice and spilling through their bond.

"Got distracted there," he said hesitantly. "We'll be there when you get through."

Beating the labyrinth isn't as bad as it seems when you know the movie by heart and there's an archangel in his head helping him out with the things he didn't recognize. It also helps that he knows not to mock the labyrinth or complain that things aren't fair – he's had worse injustices to deal with than a sentient labyrinth.

* * *

Gabriel found himself pulled away from Sam's side by Dean frantically shaking him awake. Gabriel hadn't been sleeping, just making it easier for himself to interact with Sam – being awake for the process required far more energy and concentration than Gabriel could spare, so he lay down right after Dean and Cas had taken off, probably to help Benny in his reconnaissance.

Dean was sliding a hand under Gabriel's back to help him up faster. "Come on, we gotta get out of here before they come back!" he says and drags him along until they are out of sight of their former camping ground.

He remembers to keep an eye on Sam, so he concentrates on their thread and follows it back with a thought. Not as aware of what was going on in the labyrinth as he would have liked, but it meant he could act in the realm his body currently inhabited, while at the same time help Sam.

He gets no other explanation until he sees Cas and Benny surrounded by a pile of slowly vanishing vampire corpses.

"We kept them away as long as we could," Castiel explains. He's a bloody mess and Gabriel would bet at least some of it was his.

Benny is watching Castiel with the same worried look he sometimes gives Dean when he's being particularly suborned. "They damn near got you, too, Cas!" he said, already using the nickname Dean had probably drilled into him before all four of them met. "We can't afford to get separated now."

In practical terms, Gabriel understood that better than anyone – they were so close, that any delay could prove to be a catastrophe.

Dean was fretting over Cas' injuries like a mother hen now that he didn't have to look after Gabriel again. Both Castiel and Dean were sneaking grateful looks in the vampire's direction and it was making Gabriel a little uneasy. Sure, his little brother had been growing more comfortable around the vampire, but usually Dean had to act as a buffer between them.

"You can stop coddling the angel, Dean!" Benny teased as Dean double checked Castiel's already healing injuries.

Gabriel was starting to feel like a third wheel, so he cleared his throat. "Let's get a move on! Sammykins is gonna get through any minute now and we need to be there to greet him."

Once they were off, Gabriel kept switching between his group and leading Sam through the labyrinth. Honestly, the kid didn't need much help, as he seemed to have the movie memorized by heart, but he could do with the company and an occasional reminder not to get distracted by the locals. Back in Purgatory, Gabriel was letting Benny and Dean lead, while using Cas' support to keep up – it was difficult to coordinate with Sam if he had to watch his feet as he was going. Also, they had a better notion where the portal was located.

It takes them less than the thirteen hours the Goblin King had offered for everyone to reach the point in Purgatory onto which the portal from the labyrinth opened. Once Sam is through, the real problem comes up and it has nothing to do with monsters on their tails.

* * *

The door at the heart of the labyrinth was unguarded. It also looked perfectly unimpressive and mundane. Sam wasn't sure what he actually expected to find there, but Gabriel was very amused. The challenges the labyrinth had thrown at Sam were so close to the ones in the movie, it felt almost like cheating.

"It's not cheating if he lets you win, kiddo," Gabriel reminds him.

Sam's hand reaches for the doorknob and then he leaves it there. "But it's a trick," he says, looking at the faded silhouette at his side.

Gabriel places his immaterial hand over Sam's. There's no pressure to it, but Sam feels his hand turn the knob.

He still doesn't open the door.

"Yeah," Gabriel admits, mentally tugging at Sam. "Of course it's a trick, but it's directed at me. And I know the sort of tricks he's into."

"So, if I open this door..." Sam hesitated. He was holding back. It would have been so easy to just let his hand relax and let the door come open – he would have Dean back.

"He's there, keeping watch to make sure we don't get attacked before you get there. So's Cas and... Well, we're waiting, Samsquatch." Gabriel's voice was quiet, even for this ghostly version of himself and it carried more weight, though there was something he wasn't saying. It didn't have the weight of a secret.

Sam took in a deep breath and eased his hold on the doorknob, letting the door creek open. The other side was dark and Gabriel went ahead of him through the door.

* * *

Dean had adopted Gabriel's strategy of not telling Sam about Benny, since none of them knew how to explain the presence of a vampire in their group to the kids under the circumstances. Gabriel's intentions toward the vampire had gone from 'maybe we can ditch him on the way', to 'he's okay and we can't just screw him over' during their time together, but his resolve to inform Sam of Benny's presence went from 'unnecessary' to 'oh, crap!' and he put it off indefinitely. Fortunately, they didn't have to tell Sam just yet about the vampire – yes, he had saved Cas only hours earlier, and he had been there for Dean through most of his stay in purgatory, and he was actually pleasant company, but why risk everything on a freakout when Sam didn't even have to meet Benny until they were out of Purgatory?

The binding spell Dean and Benny had agreed to use was safe – there were going to be consequences, but nothing either of them couldn't live with and, more importantly, they would be alive to regret it, when they eventually realize it was a bad idea. A couple of cuts and some Latin later, Dean and Benny were one, the vampire's soul tucked away inside the hunter, trusting that it would be reunited with his earthly remains once they were back on the other side.

"It's not possession!" Dean insisted, ignoring the looks Castiel was throwing him.

Then Sam finally crossed through the portal – an unassuming patch of shimmering air in the deep woods, much less impressive than the one that was rumored to open directly into the land of the living – and Dean was doing his hardest to hide his guilty secret under Castiel's disappointed glare. The fact that Sam was willing to set aside all their ridiculous hang-ups about displays of affection and swept his brother into a hug the moment he had steadied himself on the unfamiliar ground, only made Dean's guilt shine brighter. Sam was too relieved to see him again to bring it up, but they were going to have words about this eventually.

Sam sends Dean through first, instructing him to keep an eye out until they all crossed. The shimmering air parted and engulfed him in a matter of a few steps. Castiel was hesitant, but followed close on his trail, looking worriedly at Sam before he crossed. Gabriel wants to believe that things are just that simple, but he knows he can't leave even before the air turns solid in his face, hitting him like a slammed door.

Sam looks like this turn was his fault. Gabriel knows it's because he's dead, like Benny, a soul that that had been bound to this place. It's not a failing of any kind on Sam's part and he tells him precisely that. He needed to be alive in a sense other than spiritual.

Though... if it worked for the vampire...

Gabriel told him that there might be a way, if he could piggyback on someone who could cross.

"You need a vessel," Sam concluded without hesitation. His eyes shone with determination and Gabriel thought that if he asked it of him at that moment, he might even consider it.

Gabriel shook his head. "No," he said slowly, "I need a ride." He explained the spell Dean had used with Benny, omitting the context in which he'd learned it. It had worked already, so he at least could be certain of that.

"Okay," Sam agreed immediately.

Gabriel looked at him stunned.

"You're already in my head," Sam said. "And I didn't go through all this trouble to leave you to rot in Purgatory."

Compared to other stuff the kid had been through in the years since this thread bound them to each other, Gabriel knew it was child's play. A simple spell, a bit of blood and he would be safely sealed under Sam's skin until they were safe and there was less he could do to Sam from inside than their connection already allowed.

They went through with it and, finally, Gabriel was free of Purgatory, tucked away among the pieces of himself Sam had collected.

* * *

It felt weird to be back in the world, having lunch in a crappy diner with Dean and Cas at his side. It made the last couple of days look even more surreal than when he had lived them.

Yet, there they were, all three, having thanked the Goblin King for his help and hospitality and assured him that his debt was paid (he clearly wished he could have seen Gabriel upon their return), having said goodbye to Charlie for the moment, since she had her own debts to honor (having negotiated with the Goblin King in Sam's absence to grant them safe passage out of the labyrinth), and having poured their secrets onto the table among the cups of coffee and unhealthy food – there was a vampire's soul inside of Dean and Sam's brother had to go resurrect him from his bones, Castiel was going with him and Sam was not sure he could stay awake for much longer.

They all leave and leave Sam alone in a slightly-better-than-average motel room. He wants to be alone and work out his situation with Gabriel. So Dean does just that, leaving to find Benny's grave and keep his promise.

Sam sleeps for a week – long enough for Charlie to return and worry about him. Her first instinct is to ask Kali for help, but Sam sleepily stops her. It's Gabriel's fault. His return from Purgatory had left him weak and vulnerable, but he had no body to return to. He stirred under Sam's skin, his grace and magic slowly returning to him.

There was a part of Sam that wasn't human. It was the dark side that had been further tainted by the demon blood, yet Gabriel had formed a strong attachment to it. Even if it wasn't a physical thing, Sam could always feel Gabriel curl up around it in his mind.

* * *

"Let's go somewhere fun!" Gabriel insists once his new body is finished. He stretches like a cat and plops back down on the bed next to Sam. "We have time until Dean and Cas get back from jumping Benny's bones," he insists, wagging his eyebrows and rolling over into Sam's side.

It earns him a mumbled "Quit it, Gabe!" from his exasperated roommate.

"Come on, if the ritual worked, they revived him by now. What do _you_ think they're doing?" – there is much waggling of eyebrows and leering whenever Gabriel brings this up and Sam is appalled to realize he's actually thinking the same.

"Fine," Sam eventually concedes, if only to shut him up about Dean. "But we're not going to Vegas!"


End file.
